Day: May 30, 2014

Maybe having Jay Leno announce your renewal on-air during your show wasn’t the best idea, after all. Late today at the end of an off week, The Arsenio Hall Show found out its second season would not be happening this fall. Instead, CBS Television Distribution announced it’s canceling the show. Make that CANCELLED. Arsenio isn’t coming back Monday, even. No chance for an on-air farewell. Hall initially made his comeback to late-night TV talk last fall with a two-year syndication deal with the Tribune-owned TV affiliates. Leno himself made his first appearance in “retirement” three months ago to deliver...

Last year, America’s Got Talent judge Howie Mandel called out a stand-up comedian for auditioning with a bit he’d seen another comedian do — a fact complicated ironically since that other comedian was AGT’s audience warm-up guy: Frank Nicotero. We never even saw the disputed audition on TV when AGT aired on NBC over the summer of 2013. But now we do get to see the set in question, performed by Nicotero, in the latest promotional clip for NBC’s Last Comic Standing, uploaded last night. The promo copy reads: “Want to know what every fight between a girl and...

Jon Lovitz is singing for his supper this summer. And he’s not pathologically lying about it this time. Nor is he ACTING! Lovitz is one of the competitors in ABC’s summer celebreality stunt, Sing Your Face Off, which debuts Saturday night with back-to-back episodes from 9 to 11 p.m. Eastern/Pacific. In those first two tries, you’ll see Lovitz fully inhabit the characters and voices of Elton John and Pavarotti. The following Saturday, he’ll take on Billy Idol and Meatloaf. But why? And why singing and not, say, high-diving literally? “I just felt it was something I could possibly do,...

Last night, Kurt Braunohler snapped a photo of a room full of people in Chicago and typed on Instagram: “I cannot believe 22 people will live on a river for 7 days because I had a stupid idea. #roustabout” We cannot believe Braunohler still plans to go through his latest “stupid idea.” And yet, this morning, he did just that. Or started to, anyhow. He began a weeklong Jet-Ski adventure from Chicago down the Illinois River to the Mississippi River all the way to New Orleans. Last year, he’d hired a skywriter to fly above Los Angeles and puff...

It’s commencement time. Why sit through 15-minute or half-hour speeches, when all you really want to hear is some sound advice. Here is Norm Macdonald with his literal keys to success. Via Funny or Die. Roll the...